Process control systems for industrial processes, whether distributed control system (DCS) or supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems, generally include one or more process controllers communicatively coupled to at least one host (e.g., an operator workstation) and to one or more process control devices (e.g., field devices) configured to communicate via analog, digital or combined analog/digital communication signals and/or protocols. Such process control systems are commonly used in chemical, pharmaceutical, pulp and paper manufacturing and petroleum processes. The field devices can comprise device controllers, valves, valve actuators or positioners, switches, transmitters (e.g., temperature, pressure, flow rate, or chemical composition sensors), performing functions within the process control system such as opening and/or closing valves and measuring process parameters. The process controller receives signals indicative of process measurements made by the field devices and/or other information pertaining to the field devices, uses this information to implement a control routine, and generates control signals over buses and/or other communication lines to the field devices to control the operation of the process control system.
Some industrial processes such as petroleum refining include storage tanks. Tank gauging is needed for the assessment of tank contents, tank inventory control and tank farm management. Radar and servo tank sensors (or gauges) help in accurate level gauging for refineries, tank terminals and petrochemical industries. Tank inventory systems utilize tank gauging data and provide connectivity for various field protocols that enable integration of existing field equipment. A set of standardized host interface areas are available to link software packages to control systems and business domain packages for advanced resource planning and asset management.
There are known tank inventory systems sufficiently flexible to handle tank farms ranging from a single tank up to more than 250 tanks, covering multiple locations and a variety of different gauges and interfaces. One such conventional tank inventory system comprises a pair of embedded software “host” applications running in a Communication Interface Unit (CIU) that is essentially basically an embedded personal computer (PC) and a dedicated WINDOWS graphical user interface (GUI) application that provides GUIs in standard formats for representing process data with both text and graphics running at a PC at an operator station or distributed control system (DCS).
This conventional tank inventory system requires high development costs and significant maintainability efforts because designing and implementing a GUI to suit all customers takes considerable effort. An experienced programmer is needed to perform this task. All logic for performing calculations, rounding, input validation, (button) event handling, localization, etc. also needs good programming skills. Moreover, such conventional tank inventory systems generally provide only a limited provision for customization/extension for customers should they have any specific need(s).